Feet of Clay (36 page)

‘Ah. Right,’ said Carrot, and dropped off the gantry.

He landed on the king’s back, flung one arm around its neck, and began to pound on its head with the hilt of his sword. It staggered and tried to reach up to pull him off.

‘Got to get the words out!’ Carrot shouted, as the arms flailed at him. ‘It’s the only … way!’

The king staggered forward and hit a stack of boxes, which burst and rained candles over the floor. Carrot grabbed its ears and tried to twist.

Angua heard him saying: ‘You … have … the right … to … a lawyer …’

‘Carrot! Don’t bother with its damn rights!’

‘You … have … the right to—’

‘Just give it the
last
ones!’

There was a commotion in the gaping doorway and Vimes ran in, sword drawn. ‘Oh,
gods
… Sergeant Detritus!’

Detritus appeared behind him. ‘Sah!’

‘Crossbow bolt through the head, if you please!’

‘If you say so, sir …’

‘
Its
head, Sergeant! Mine is fine! Carrot, get down off the thing!’

‘Can’t get its head off, sir!’

‘We’ll try six feet of cold steel in the ear just as soon as you let the damn thing go!’

Carrot steadied himself on the king’s shoulders, tried to judge his moment as the thing staggered around, and leapt.

He landed awkwardly on a sliding heap of candles. His leg buckled under him and he tumbled over until he was stopped by the inert shell that had been Dorfl.

‘Hey, look dis way, mister,’ said Detritus.

The king turned.

Vimes didn’t catch everything that happened next, because it all happened so quickly. He was merely aware of the rush of air and the
gloink
of the rebounding bolt mingling with the wooden juddering noise as it buried itself in the doorframe behind him.

And the golem was crouching down by Carrot, who was trying to squirm out of the way.

It raised a fist, and brought it down …

Vimes didn’t even see Dorfl’s arm move but there it was
there
, suddenly gripping the king’s wrist.

Tiny stars of light went nova in Dorfl’s eyes.

‘Tssssss!’

As the king jerked back in surprise, Dorfl held on and levered himself up on what remained of his legs. As he came up so did his fist.

Time slowed. Nothing moved in the whole universe but Dorfl’s fist.

It swung like a planet, without any apparent speed but with a drifting unstoppability.

And then the king’s expression changed. Just before the fist landed, it smiled.

The golem’s head exploded. Vimes recalled it in
slow
motion, one long second of floating pottery. And words. Scraps of paper flew out, dozens,
scores
of them, tumbling gently to the floor.

Slowly, peacefully, the king hit the floor. The red light died, the cracks opened, and then there were just … pieces.

Dorfl collapsed on top of them.

Angua and Vimes reached Carrot together.

‘He came alive!’ said Carrot, struggling up. ‘That thing was going to kill me and Dorfl came alive! But that thing had smashed the words out of his head! A golem
has
to have the words!’

‘They gave their own golem too many, I can see that,’ said Vimes.

He picked up some of the coils of paper.

… CREATE PEACE AND JUSTICE FOR ALL …

… RULE US WISELY …

… TEACH US FREEDOM …

… LEAD US TO …

Poor devil
, he thought.

‘Let’s get you home. That hand needs treating—’ said Angua.

‘
Listen
, will you?’ said Carrot. ‘He’s alive!’

Vimes knelt down by Dorfl. The broken clay skull looked as empty as yesterday’s breakfast egg. But there was still a pinpoint of light in each eye socket.

‘Usssss,’ hissed Dorfl, so faintly that Vimes wasn’t sure he’d heard it.

A finger scratched on the floor.

‘Is it trying to write something?’ said Angua.

Vimes pulled out his notebook, eased it under Dorfl’s hand, and gently pushed a pencil into the
golem’s
fingers. They watched the hand as it wrote – a little jerkily but still with the mechanical precision of a golem – eight words.

Then it stopped. The pencil rolled away. The lights in Dorfl’s eyes dwindled and went out.

‘Good grief,’ breathed Angua. ‘They
don’t
need words in their heads …’

‘We can rebuild him,’ said Carrot hoarsely. ‘We have the pottery.’

Vimes stared at the words, and then at what remained of Dorfl.

‘Mr Vimes?’ said Carrot.

‘Do it,’ said Vimes.

Carrot blinked.

‘Right now,’ Vimes said. He looked back at the scrawl in his book.

WORDS IN THE HEART CAN NOT BE TAKEN.

‘And when you rebuild him,’ he said, ‘when you rebuild him … give him a voice. Understand? And get someone to look at your hand.’

‘A voice, sir?’

‘Do it!’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Right.’ Vimes pulled himself together. ‘Constable Angua and I will have a look around here. Off you go.’

He watched Carrot and the troll carry the remains out. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘We’re looking for arsenic. Maybe there’ll be some workshop somewhere. I shouldn’t think they’d want to mix the poisoned candles up with the others. Cheery’ll know what—Where
is
Corporal Littlebottom?’

‘Er … I don’t think I can hold on much longer …’

They looked up.

Cheri was hanging on the line of candles.

‘How did you get up there?’ said Vimes.

‘I sort of found myself going past, sir.’

‘Can’t you just let go? You’re not that high—Oh …’

A big trough of molten tallow was a few feet under her. Occasionally the surface went
gloop
.

‘Er … how hot would that be?’ Vimes hissed to Angua.

‘Ever bitten hot jam?’ she said.

Vimes raised his voice. ‘Can’t you swing yourself along, Corporal?’

‘All the wood’s greasy, sir!’

‘Corporal Littlebottom, I
order
you not to fall off!’

‘Very good, sir!’

Vimes pulled off his jacket. ‘Hang on to this. I’ll see if I can climb up …’ he muttered.

‘It won’t work!’ said Angua. ‘The thing’s shaky enough as it is!’

‘I can feel my hands slipping, sir.’

‘Good grief, why didn’t you call out earlier?’

‘Everyone seemed to be busy, sir.’

‘Turn around, sir,’ said Angua, undoing the buckles of her breastplate. ‘Right now, please! And shut your eyes!’

‘Why, what …?’

‘Rrright nowwww, sirrrrr!’

‘Oh … yes …’

Vimes heard Angua back away from the candle
machine
, her footsteps punctuated by the clang of falling armour. Then she started running and the footsteps
changed
while she was running and then …

He opened his eyes.

The wolf sailed upwards in slow motion, caught the dwarf’s shoulder in its jaws as Cheri’s grip gave way, and then arced its body so that wolf and dwarf hit the floor on the far side of the vat.

Angua rolled, whimpering.

Cheri scrambled to her feet. ‘It’s a werewolf!’

Angua rolled back and forth, pawing at her mouth.

‘What’s happened to it?’ said Cheri, her panic receding a little. ‘It looks … hurt. Where’s Angua? Oh …’

Vimes glanced at the dwarf’s torn leather shirt. ‘You wear chain mail
under
your clothes?’ he said.

‘Oh … it’s my silver vest … but she
knew
about it. I
told
her …’

Vimes grabbed Angua’s collar. She moved to bite him, and then caught his eye and turned her head away.

‘She only
bit
the silver,’ said Cheri, distractedly.

Angua pulled herself on to her feet, glared at them, and slunk off behind some crates. They heard her whimpering which, by degrees, became a voice.

‘Blasted blasted dwarfs and their blasted vests …’

‘You all right, Constable?’ said Vimes.

‘Damn silver underwear … Can you throw me my clothes, please?’

Vimes bundled up Angua’s uniform and, eyes closed for decency’s sake, handed it around the crates.

‘No one
told
me she was a were—’ Cheri moaned.

‘Look at it like this, Corporal,’ said Vimes, as patiently as he could. ‘If she
hadn’t
been a werewolf you would by now be the world’s largest novelty candle, all right?’

Angua walked from behind the crates, rubbing her mouth. The skin around it looked too pink …

‘It burned you?’ said Cheri.

‘It’ll heal,’ said Angua.

‘You never said you were a werewolf!’

‘How would you’ve liked me to have put it?’

‘Right,’ said Vimes, ‘if
that’s
all sorted out, ladies, I want this place searched. Understand?’

‘I’ve got some ointment,’ said Cheri meekly.

‘Thank you.’

They found a bag in a cellar. There were several boxes of candles. And a lot of dead rats.

Igneous the troll opened the door of his pottery a fraction. He’d intended the fraction to be no more than about one-sixteenth, but someone immediately pushed hard and turned it into rather more than one and three-quarters.

‘Here, what’s dis?’ he said, as Detritus and Carrot came in with the shell of Dorfl between them. ‘You can’t jus’ break in here—’

‘We ain’t
just
breakin’ in,’ said Detritus.

‘Dis is an outrage,’ said Igneous. ‘You got no right comin’ in here. You got no reason—’

Detritus let go of the golem and spun around. His hand shot out and caught Igneous around the throat. ‘You see dose statchoos of Monolith over dere? You
see
dem?’ he growled, twisting the other troll’s head to face a row of troll religious statues on the other side of the warehouse. ‘You want I should smash one open, see what dey’re fill wit’, maybe
find
a reason?’

Igneous’s slitted eyes darted this way and that. He might have been hard of thinking, but he could feel a killing mood when it was in the air. ‘No call for dat, I always help der Watch,’ he muttered. ‘What dis all about?’

Carrot laid out the golem on a table. ‘Start, then,’ he said. ‘Rebuild him. Use as much of the old clay as you can, understand?’

‘How can it work when its lights’re out?’ said Detritus, still puzzled by this mission of mercy.

‘He said the clay remembers!’

The sergeant shrugged.

‘And give him a tongue,’ said Carrot.

Igneous looked shocked. ‘I won’t do
dat
,’ he said. ‘Everybody know it
blasphemy
if golems speak.’

‘Oh, yeah?’ said Detritus. He strode across the warehouse to the group of statues and glared at them. Then he said, ‘Whoops, here’s me accident’ly trippin’ up, ooo, dis is me grabbin’ a statchoo for support, oh, der arm have come right off, where can I put my face … and what is dis white powder what I sees here with my eyes accident’ly spillin’ on der floor?’

He licked a finger and gingerly tasted the stuff.

‘Slab,’ he growled, walking back to the trembling Igneous. ‘You tellin’
me
about blasphemy, you sedimentr’y coprolith? You doin’ what Captain Carrot say right
now
or you goin’ out of here in a
sack
!’

‘Dis is police brutality …’ Igneous muttered.

‘No,
dis
is just police shoutin’!’ yelled Detritus. ‘You want to try for brutality it okay wit’ me!’

Igneous tried to appeal to Carrot. ‘It not right, he got a badge, he puttin’ me in fear, he can’t do dis,’ he said.

Carrot nodded. There was a glint in his eye that Igneous should have noticed. ‘That’s correct,’ he said. ‘Sergeant Detritus?’

‘Sir?’

‘It’s been a long day for all of us. You can go off duty.’

‘Yessir!’ said Detritus, with considerable enthusiasm. He removed his badge and laid it down carefully. Then he started to struggle out of his armour.

‘Look at it like this,’ said Carrot. ‘It’s not that we’re making life, we’re simply giving life a place to live.’

Igneous finally gave up. ‘Okay,
okay
,’ he muttered. ‘I doin’ it. I
doin
’ it.’

He looked at the various lumps and shards that were all that remained of Dorfl, and rubbed the lichen on his chin.

‘You got most of the bits,’ he said, professionalism edging resentment aside for a moment. ‘I could glue him together wit’ kiln cement. Dat’d do the
trick
if we bakes him overnight. Lessee … I reckon I got some over dere …’

Detritus blinked at his finger, which was still white with the dust, and sidled over to Carrot. ‘Did I just lick dis?’ he said.

‘Er, yes,’ said Carrot.

‘T’ank goodness for dat,’ said Detritus, blinking furiously. ‘’d hate to believe dis room was
really
full of giant hairy spide … weeble weeble sclup …’

He hit the floor, but happily.

‘Even if I do it you can’t make it come alive again,’ muttered Igneous, returning to his bench. ‘You won’t find a priest who’s goin’ to write der words for in der head, not again.’

‘He’ll make up his own words,’ said Carrot.

‘And who’s going to watch the oven?’ said Igneous. ‘It’s gonna take ’til breakfast at least …’

‘I wasn’t planning on doing anything for the rest of tonight,’ said Carrot, taking off his helmet.

Vimes awoke around four o’clock. He’d gone to sleep at his desk. He hadn’t meant to, but his body had just shut down.

It wasn’t the first time he’d opened bleary eyes there. But at least he wasn’t lying in anything sticky.

He focused on the report he’d half-written. His notebook was beside it, page after page of laborious scrawl to remind him that he was trying to understand a complex world by means of his simple mind.

He yawned, and looked out at the shank of the night.

He didn’t have any evidence. No real evidence at all. He’d had an interview with an almost incoherent Corporal Nobbs, who hadn’t really seen anything. He had nothing that wouldn’t burn away like the fog in the morning. All he’d got were a few suspicions and a lot of coincidences, leaning against one another like a house of cards with no card on the bottom.

He peered at his notebook.

Someone seemed to have been working hard. Oh, yes. It had been him.